charlesweir / wordimagesandtables

Microsoft Word Plug-in to support Desktop Publishing: easy updating and positioning of figures and tables.

Hi, I'm Charles Weir. I work as a researcher at Lancaster University, UK

Most of my projects here are stuff related to the needs of a researcher, but will also have other applications. I'm particularly pleased with WordImagesAndTables, which I use all the time myself when writing Word documents.

There's more about me and further links at https://charlesweir.com

wordimagesandtables's Issues

Make insert frame right size?

In New Image and New Table, rather than force the user to change the frame size, have the insertion code fit it to the column width (and perhaps adjust the image and set the frame to auto adjust its height too). Add a note in the caption, perhaps, to manually expand the frame width if it is to cross columns.

Error in Relayout Document when two frames have same name

Get "This key is already associated with an element of this collection (Error 457)". E.g. on ChangeImageTest.docx, which currently has two Figure 2 entries.

Workaround - refresh before doing relayout?

Needs marketing

Need to add social media sharing tools and requests for stars.

Replace Picture: Border lost

On Word for Mac Version 16.45:
When Replace Picture is used on an image with a border, the replaced image has no border.

Relayout Document needs to identify omitted frames

it's easy to get frames omitted by Relayout Document, but very hard to track down which ones have been omitted.

Suggest the 'do you want to continue' dialog list the omitted frames.

Make table template not have tables

In Insert Table it's a pain to have to delete the table each time, and impossible really to use it as is. Replace the table in the template with text: [Insert or paste table here]

Plug-in installation documentation issues

Some setups have permissions that don't allow installation. (perhaps not to that directory; perhaps not at all).

Add - change template to instructions.

Insert Figure in column too big

The autotext image is too big for the frame, and there is an extra CR below the caption.

Whoops: New insert doesn't work in two column mode.

Lines of text not aligned in two column mode

Most magazines and Latex-based multi-column documents align the lines of text in each column.

The Word templates I've found so far don't do this. The reasons are:

• Line spacing varies according to the content of the line (parentheses, for example, take more space). One can make spacing fixed in the style, but it's not default and it's not clear what the spacing should be (e.g. 11.3 for 10 point Times)
• Titles aren't integer multiples of the body line height. Can fix as above.
• Images at the top of the page aren't multiples of the line height. Can fix by setting the bottom 'Distance from Text' parameter so (frame height + bottom distance from text + a tiny bit?) = multiple of line height.

Description in intro doesn't mention borders

in README.md

Occasional bug in Word positioning

Bug in Word formatting. If top of right hand column, centred in column, sometimes Word positions it more centred in page. Use Right relative to Margin or absolute positioning?

Probabably in function SetToFloatAt.

N.B. Waiting for suitable test document.

Needs Windows Installer

(and Mac installer, come to that).

Undo cleanup

In Sub ButtonPressed in module FiguresAndTables, if the subroutine is exited any way but the end, the UndoRecord object remains active.

Relayout Document: Image wrongly located in top right hand column

Given a two-column layout, where there are images at the top of both left and right hand columns, sometimes Word misplaces the right hand image to be nearer the centre of the page. This messes up the layout. That can be fixed manually by moving the image back with the mouse; but the resulting misuse of space can also cause the layout of following pages to be wrong.

This appears to be a bug in MS Word. A possible workaround might be to use absolute positioning when the error occurs (how to detect it?).

TBD Test example.

Replace picture doesn't need frame

The Replace Picture function can work for any image, not just those in frames. Currently it requires a frame.

Needs: How does it work, and limitations

Needs a friendly explanation of the layout algorithm. Need also to warn that Word for Mac is less stable and can crash with big documents.

Insert Table and Insert Figure Autotext Unhelpful

Mostly in 'insert table', I have an existing table to copy in. If not, it's still easier to use 'create new table' rather than modify the one in the template.

So remove the sample table, and replace with tips what to do: ensure frame is big enough before inserting table; just insert table here… Table width normally 100%. Style for table cell, table headings, etc.

Needs user-accessible version information

Perhaps if control key pressed during any command, display version dialog?

Can we detect the last update date of the template? Probably - we can get its full name (path?) using AnchoredFrame.ThisTemplate.FullName.

Error 4605 with Insert Picture on Lancaster Virtual Desktop

Insert Picture and Insert Table repeatably get an error (4605). This happens after the frame is inserted, before the reference to the caption is created.

(from debugger) It happens in AnchoredFrame.InsertCrossReferenceBesideAnchor(autotextName As String), but not at a repeatable location.

Hypothesis: It's the use of cut and paste functionality; Virtual Desktop has a weird cut popup which must affect timing and cause sections of the document to remain locked. We've seen this problem before, but then it was always the same line that failed.

Try: Replacing cut and paste with Range.formattedText = ... https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/151112df-e4fc-447d-a13d-a4198eddf805/how-do-i-move-text-in-word-2010-in-a-macro-without-copying-and-pasting?forum=word

Update all can do Mendeley/Zotero restyling.

Since only Mendeley/Zotero are likely to have the appropriate Bibliography field, we can restyle this as style Bibliography without affecting users of different systems.

LaTeX spelling

... is as above. It's incorrect in the README file.

Would like this package publicly distributed as a Microsoft Office AddIn via the AppSource route

It would be good to make this plug-in publicly available through the Microsoft program.

Word plug-ins written in JavaScript can be submitted to Microsoft through
AppSource, and made publicly available. The deployment model is not explicit in the documentation, but I assume Microsoft host such add-ins on Azure.

Could this be done with WordImagesAndTables?

Make it easy to insert image

Easiest would be to have 'Select this and use Replace Picture" as instructions in the image itself.
But then the new image will be scaled the same as the template image.

So when replacing the template image (only), we don't want Replace Picture to preserve all the properties - just the width, scaling everything else accordingly. How to mark the template image as different?

Readme text on Github out of date

Some of the descriptions (e.g. of Insert Figure) in the readme need updating to match new functionality.